oh back to the big picture i'm tom hartman well coming up in this half hour can corporations really have the power to control what we know and don't know about the very building blocks of life well they soon could the supreme court allow corporations to patently human genome and what effect would that have on our lives and all across this country americans are dying a slow painful death thanks to this nation's toxic and unhealthy food system what should the federal government be doing to ensure that all americans have access to safe and healthy foods.

in the us to the rest of the news corp's want to claim ownership of the most basic building blocks of life in the supreme court may just let them last friday the high court agreed to hear a case and whether or not corporations can patent human gene it's ok centers on the company myriad genetics which is trying to patent two genes related to breast cancer that's giving that company a monopoly on genetic testing for breast cancer on the court in two thousand and ten block the patents another decision this year agreed with marriage in attics that the genes can indeed be at and now it'll be up to the supreme court to issue the final ruling the a.c.l.u. argues the singes genes are a product of nature they shouldn't be at and double and executive director of the public patent foundation said the government does not have the right to give a corporation the exclusive power to control what we know about our own genetic make up a ruling is expected in june. what might the implications be happen tonia joins me

now he is an attorney and the host a ring of fire radio mike welcome back. i'm great i hope you are two. very good paddy human genes what's your take on this who are the legal argument is simple legal argument i mean the genes are a product of nature in they don't qualify for a patent the second part of the legal the purely legal argument is that the patent system has a constitutional mandate they've always operated under a constitutional mandate to promote in vigorously expand the progress of science throughout the world but take it away from the legal argument look at the practical argument the simpler commonsense argument is that if a corporation has a patent over human d.n.a. then that corporation is only going to focus on how they can make a profit from that patent how they can make a profit from that d.n.a. to the detriment of human life and human well being for example in this case as you

pointed out this company wants to control they want control over a gene that shows that a woman's predisposed to suffer from breast cancer ovarian cancer well the the corporation has a clear plan the reason they want to hold this patent is they want to exclude they want to prevent course they want to can prevent hospitals and universities and research centers from conducting competitive testing in competitive laboratory ass a that might successfully detect genetic predisposition in a patient so it's look it's a new medical industrial complex there's twenty three thousand genes out there five thousand have already been patented. thomas jefferson was famously opposed to had laws been actually at all i mean he himself never patented anything and he was a prolific inventor but he felt that wrote several times that if we must have patented . laws they shouldn't last more than three years because there's really no such

thing as a new invention everything is merely a fine tuning of something that preceded it where are we now with patent law and that that three year limit would then promote you know the interest of science where we out as pat was right now how they've changed over the last few generations yet there's so many ways to have a pad in the for infinity i mean all they have to do is make a simplification a change an alteration a modification and then modify that pattern and it simply projects the project itself generation to generation the problem that we see when that happens is that stifle science in this situation for example what you're going to find is the inability to take this very important gene in diagnose women that might be developing cancer or even come up with a therapeutic treatment for women who might be developing cancer because this

company once they get to get the patent possession of the bat and they'll tweak it just a little bit to where they still hold that that patent you know for the rest of time . think about this because they have control of this patent tom there's we might not be able to eradicate this disease think of this had this been in place when polio we were faced with polio we were faced with smallpox science would not have been able to succeed they would have been able to move ahead because they weren't they would have been able cooperate they would have been able to share research but this federal court ruled two to one in the lower you know from a standpoint of reversing a lower court and they've turning their turning science research on its head in telling us that it's more important for a corporation to make a profit than it is for a woman to save or alive that's pretty amazing and and seemingly quite unconstitutional let's go bottom. politics republicans put out their counter

proposal yesterday to you know president obama said ok here's who i want to raise taxes on now you tell me what you want to cut in the public and said ok cool no tax hikes on the rich but let's raise the eligibility age for medicare let's cut hundreds of billions out of social insurance programs your take on this well my take is that the democrats and the republicans tom are both ignoring the obvious and that is wall street put us here wall street burned down the economy we then gave wall street trillions of dollars for their bad conduct we then gave them bonuses and now if they really wanted to solve this problem they would again have courage to put on the on the table if we want to tax somebody let's tax the people who put us here let's add some type of sales tax to wall street transactions where we're securities are exchanged and in derivatives are sold and bonds are exchanged there's always been this notion we can't tax we can't tax wall street if you put

even a fraction of a tax on those transactions tom you would have more than enough to wipe out this deficit and it's not unheard of look in the u.k. they've been doing this for three hundred years so what we're doing is we're missing who's responsible everybody has is looking in the wrong direction we're focusing on medicare we're focusing on social security why does it have somebody have the courage to say look why the hell are we here to begin with we're here because we're because of a greed frenzy that took place on wall street they're responsible let's let them help us pay it back tim geithner has opposed that larry summers as opposed that even when obama said you know maybe we should consider this his advisor said no that would be a bad idea but it is a way to solve this problem without having any problem to the average american and to that point a brilliant point it is by the the way. the american way to solve this problem we

had abraham lincoln put a securities tax in place of the civil war. mckinley put it in place for the spanish-american war and it stood in place until the one nine hundred thirty s. f.d.r. doubled it when he created the securities exchange commission so that he could pay joe kennedy salary basically and it stood we had a quarter percent it was called a step tech security transaction excise tax right up until nine hundred sixty four at that point the taxes created so much more money than the f.c.c. needed to function the lyndon johnson did away with it it's really time to bring that state tax back do you know if there's anybody in congress who's portions. well i think you know you're going to you're going to find somebody that's going to do is going to be an alan grayson is going to be bernie sanders type that have some courage and understand that we're ignoring the issue the media has done it to us again tom they have us thinking about fiscal cliff they have us thinking about words like social security and medicare and while that's going on the phone from

wall street have come away with this without anybody being punished at all and so the punishment should be to them you did this to us wall street now what you have to do is you have to get us through this problem in order to do that you know what you're going to have to pay your way into here tim geithner of all people they're supposed to be advising this president of how to get us out of this mess to hear tim geithner says no i don't want you to tax my friends on wall street is absurd it's shameful but but somebody has to have courage to come forward with that organ well and not only that a stat tax but also throw a little sand in the years for this automated trading that has put the whole system at risk is so unstable it's a very very important thing thanks for bringing that up happen tonio brilliant as always thank you for being with us tonight.

is the good the bad and the very supercar cain is slightly ugly the good michael for forbes is a scottish farmer who despite being bullied and called names by donald trump refused to sell him his farm and land for construction of a new golf course despite being called a variety of names by trump forbes never gave in and his refusal to sell was actually documented in a scottish film as a result forbes has just named scotland's top scot of the year. beating out sports stars and other celebrities for forbes sort of trump to get instant dislike to him he called me a village idiot accused me of living in a pig sty and i think everyone knows by now that he's the clone of new york from the sort of myself better better myself michael the bad starbucks yesterday news

broke that starbucks has been avoiding paying their fair share of taxes in the u.k. for years so how did starbucks react to the news well the company decided to slash u.k. worker pay take away paid lunch breaks and paid sick days some workers are also paid pay freezes and a lack of incentives for moving up within the company basically starbucks knows that it will now i have to pay taxes like everyone else and unfortunately the company has chosen to punish its workers in order to recoup loans you take a company that charges five bucks for a cup of coffee would be willing to pay a little in taxes. i guess not. and a very very ugly wayne la pierre lumpier president of the n.r.a. was interviewed on an n.r.a. radio program yesterday the subject of kansas city chiefs player jovan belcher's murder suicide came up here argued the belcher's girlfriend who saw her perkins could have protected herself if she had a firearm you also argue that the media is biased against guns in the a vast

majority of americans no guns make them safer. here finish the interview by insisting that crime would actually be reduced in america more americans own guns. chose to use the tragedy to spew this completely wrong pro-gun agenda and that it's very very. coming up nearly seventy percent of foods that stock supermarket shelves in america come from genetically modified organisms and can contain potentially harmful of deadly chemicals and toxins this is a time our federal government. action and provided americans from consuming dangerous fluids out of this nation's toxic it's.

you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harkin welcome to the big picture.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that many americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i missed the guy who cares an awful lot about my country you sir are a fool you know what kind of my terrorist cells in your neighborhood all want to usa to feature isn't the only liberal the christian point you. can secure the beliefs of others because it's going to fall for you to distract us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break that.

have you noticed the large number of c.e.o.'s going on t.v. to give their opinions on how to fix the debt we've heard the you know from goldman sachs c.e.o. lloyd bank blankfein about his suggestions for raising the retirement age for social security and medicare we've also heard from aetna c.e.o. mark burgle leni who also argued for raising the retirement age and means testing social security medicare benefits essential turning those programs in a welfare programs in fact seventy one c.e.o.'s have joined together as part of a so-called fix the debt coalition to call for cuts to social safety net programs instead of higher taxes on rich people like themselves and as the institute for policy studies discovered there's a good reason why these c.e.o.'s want to target social safety nets like social security and good reason is they don't need them they're all sitting on massive retirement assets averaging over nine million dollars each bank blankfein himself has nearly twelve million dollars in retirement assets it's easy to call for cuts

to social security when you know you'll never need it well in washington d.c. this morning the so-called fix the debt coalition invited republican senator rob portman for a panel discussion on how the debt can be fixed on the backs of the working class without the rich c.e.o.'s sacrificing a single penny unfortunately for all those c.e.o.'s that is panel didn't go quite according to plan take a look. con artists are. very much like you. here you are. here. and they want you. to screw me during. the week but if you're like me over the next morning let me know they share your

credit will help create more jobs in our lives the. well let him speak right they were going to let him speak as part and try to outline the republican plan to decimate the american middle class actual members of the middle class stood up one by one to tell their stories. my car were there rather than the floor we were being. hit with the way he was going to do this you'll want to eat and it was happy to leave you but you were still in a. funny. way. you know. that car was parked. quite right.

i do appreciate your suit parker will want to thank you for the color of a high school. a good senior citizen there not one suspended social security medicaid medicare we cannot. tell you what sounds like from our panelists if there. were no women then the last thing he didn't last. the. if you were to reduce. their. retirement you know. that you. are. you're in a grown not for the economy we're going to grow and that's. really really good. stuff the car going to be good. not

sell the cars the earnings are going to be i. think corporate america got the message but we know at least one guy didn't instead he was apparently angry that is speaking fee from the heritage foundation wouldn't get paid which he seems to say here would screw up things for his kids. i know you know i mean i don't know if you can. i mean i don't know if girls through age got all that money in the or in the ruble doesn't always guard you're going up paying for my kid and these are the real people here that night amount there's not for the record that was ed. who attack one of the protesters he's a millionaire a former executive a drug giant pfizer former health care lobbyist and a current scholar at the right wing heritage foundation. obviously didn't get the message let's hope this protest serves as a lesson for the rest of americans and the wealthiest two percent of americans the middle class in this country is not going down without

a fight. at the end of last year when he was running for president rick santorum told an iowa audience that he would drastically reduce federal spending on food stamps why santorum asked if hunger is a problem in america then why do we have an obesity problem among the people who we say have a hunger problem perhaps barbecue ribs ribby eating santorum is still living in the middle ages when fat bellies were a sign of wealth and plenty but in today's reality those obese and impoverished americans santorum is referring to are living the high life like the rotund of royalty of the past are actually dying a slow and ultimately miserable death courtesy of our nation's corporate food

system we hear news stories about soaring obesity diabetes and heart disease rates yet rarely make the connection back to major flaws in our national food system some local lawmakers however have made those connections most notorious was new york city mayor michael bloomberg who banned the sale of large high fructose sugary beverages and restricted the use of trans fats in his city's restaurants. but these measures were generally ridiculed by the political right i'm in amid charges that the nanny state is gone too far this is a sign americans still don't understand the urgency of reforming a food system that is slowly killing us all the issue is not whether americans have access to enough food with mcdonald's and taco bell on nearly every street corner in any town usa there is no shortage of consumable fast food issue however is not it is whether or not americans have access to enough quality food like fresh fruits

and vegetables to eat the sort of food that when i just in high volumes won't slowly kills a lot of research has been done on food deserts these are rural or urban areas around the nation that generally don't have access to grocery stores as a result people living in these food deserts can't easily get the affordable fresh fruits foods necessary for a healthy diet so instead they go to a donald get a cheeseburger for a buck the u.s.d.a. has compiled a map showing huge swaths of food deserts all across the nation from coast to coast north to so it's estimated that more than twenty three million americans including more than three million children live in these food deserts virtually all of them are forced to rely on fast food or convenience stores for their daily food and most of these food deserts exist in low income communities but at the worst food some of the worst food deserts you can see here are in the impoverished areas like new

orleans in chicago in atlanta in memphis. speaking directly to rick santorum is point a study of the american journal of preventive medicine found that the highest rates of obesity are found in the food deserts and the lowest rates of obesity are found in communities with nearby supermarkets most simple in other words a disease inducing obesity is up wherever healthy food is scarce but food deserts are only one consequence of our deadly food system monopoly is the other that the vast majority of what we eat and where we buy what we eat is controlled by just a handful of gigantic corporations that are far more interested in turning profits by leading droves of american consumers to the genetically modified feeding troughs these are filled with fatty sugar filler foods and are not providing a healthy

a natural diet which may be less profitable pink's lives as one example of these agribusinesses trying to squeeze whatever pennies they can out of a dead cow as tom philpott points out mother jones just for companies cargill archer daniels midland bungee and louis dreyfus control up to ninety percent of the global trade in the rain. in the united states three of those firms process seventy percent of the soybeans and forty percent of the wheat milled in the flour the bulk of corn and soy grown by u.s. farmers ends up feeding animals and vast factories and here to the consolidation is dramatic three companies now process more than seventy percent of all beef and just four firms slaughter impact upwards of fifty eight percent of all pork and chicken . filipov points out the grocery store monopoly as well wal-mart for example alone controls a quarter of the u.s. grocery burger and when you add in the three other largest grocer retailers together they control forty percent of the entire national grocery market and the

u.s.d.a. reports that only four companies produce seventy five percent of our breakfast cereals seventy five percent of our snack foods sixty percent of our cookies and half of all the ice cream in grocery stores together these monopolistic corporations that are growing the majority of our food producing that food and then selling that food are feeding us junk for profit incentivized by government backed corn subsidies major agribusinesses found huge profits in producing as much corn as they could so that's what they did and within a few years practically everything we americans ate and today eat contains some sort of corn filler most notoriously high fructose corn syrup prior to the one nine hundred seventy s. americans didn't consume any high fructose corn syrup but by nine hundred ninety nine each american was consuming on average forty five pounds of high fructose corn syrup every single year something which is known to be pretty healthy these

monopolistic agribusiness is also in the relentless pursuit of profits have embraced genetically modified horrors extensive testing in lab animals has raised concerns that g.m.o. has increased allergies lead to reproductive problems and may cause cancers as well as numerous other antibiotic resistance diseases and upwards of seventy percent of all the food in our grocery stores comes from g.m.o. those further increasing the toxicity of our national food system so what are americans going to wake up. well we had woken up before when our most most famous awakenings was after upton sinclair wrote the jungle in one thousand and six exposing the disease ridden corrupt american meat packing industry outrage swept the nation and eventually public pressure led to federal laws being passed like the meat inspection it and the pure food and drug addict which eventually led to the creation of the food and drug administration these combined efforts helps low the

fast deaths that americans were experiencing by consuming diseased pajama native foods. but today we need similar outrage and federal action to haul costs low deaths of americans being force fed unhealthy and genetically modified fast foods it's time for fundamental changes to our nation's toxic food system and that's the way it is tonight tuesday december fourth two thousand and twelve with more information on any of the stories we covered visit our website the target dot com or. if you missed any of the night's show you can watch it needs to yahoo loop at hulu dot com slash but the stage also check out our two you tube channels there are links over target dot com also there you can check out all the different ways you can send us your feedback. and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there and get active tag you are suitable.

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